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Office of Study Abroad
The Office of Study Abroad (OSA) at Eastern Illinois University is located on the first floor of Blair Hall on the campus of Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Illinois. The Office of Study Abroad at Eastern was founded in 2001 (1) and has sent thousands of Eastern students to learning institutions in over 50 countries around the world (2). Last year, the Office of Study Abroad sent 347 students to destinations abroad (2), the majority going on trips led by Eastern faculty (2). The Office of Study Abroad at Eastern ranks in the top ten of all schools surveyed in Illinois by the Open Doors Report group (2). The same study found it to be in the top 25% in the country and the top school among Master’s Public colleges in Illinois (2). The Office of Study Abroad receives the majority of its funding via a $90 per credit hour fee which applies to every study abroad program (1). The Study Abroad Application Process The process for Eastern students who intend to study abroad begins months before their plane departs the faraway lands in a cramped office on Eastern’s campus in a meeting with the Office of Study Abroad Coordinator Farhan Aziz. If the student has used the variety of resources available to them, including free informational brochures in the Office of Study Abroad in Blair Hall and the OSAprogram finder available on the Study Abroad website, the meetings deal with the each individual program’s fine details. Cost, time away from Eastern’s campus and the academic credits the student will earn at the foreign institution are three of the most important things to determine if a program is right for a student. By the end of that first meeting, most students are either excited about pursuing a particular program, discouraged by an unforeseen factor or still in need of further consultation and research before deciding if they are going to continue or not. When the student has a program in mind and is dead set on going, the application process begins in earnest. Every student who participates in the Office of Study Abroad fills out the same 10 page application form with all of the necessary personal information and paper work allowing them to go. No matter which of the programs they select (for a complete break-down of the available programs, see the section “Study Abroad Options Offered”) the student needs to meet academic and judicial requirements. A GPA of at least 2.0 is required and the student must not have an arrest on their record deemed to be “serious” by the OSA. Included in the application form is a Course Equivalency Form. This critical document is used to keep track of what the courses the student takes at the foreign institution will count as when they return to EIU. The student must first list the courses they intend on taking at the foreign institution then take the form to the chair of the department that they want to get credit in. It is up to the chair to decide what the foreign course is most similar to in their department and then sign off on it. In most situations, the student will go into the meeting with a hope that the chair will select a certain course that translates itself into the student’s Eastern graduation requirements. No matter how much the student pleads with the chair on which course to give them credit for, the chair’s recommendation is final. Another component of the 10 page application is filling out passport information. All students need a U.S. Passport to leave the country and so it is required on the form. Students who are under 18 years old need parental consent before participating in Study Abroad. Students over 18 need to give the university permission to release the details of events that happen to them while abroad to people of their choosing. This is because students over 18 have the right to keep their affairs to themselves and may not want their parents to know if they were involved in a foreign incident. Once the 10 page application is turned in, the students can look for scholarship options. There are a variety of options available to students, all of which can be found on the Study Abroad website. After the students’ application is accepted by both the Office of Study Abroad at Eastern and the foreign institution (if their program is not lead by Eastern faculty), the students are ready to go. The Office of Study Abroad will verify that students have their airfare in order before they leave. Most countries won’t allow students in who don’t have a return flight already arranged. Before they depart, students attend a pre-departure meeting led by the OSA over the basics of what they can expect when they land in a foreign country. Throughout their time abroad, students are able to contact the OSA with any problems or questions. In addition, OSA staff members write students abroad hand written letters updating them on the happenings in Charleston while they are away. Study Abroad Options Offered The current Office of Study Abroad offers programming of varying types and lengths to any student of Eastern Illinois University. Program Types The Office of Study Abroad offers a variety of different types of programs to Eastern students: Faculty-Lead Programs, Partner Programs, Exchange Programs, independent Programs. Faculty-Lead programs are ones designed, arraigned and lead by various professors at Eastern Illinois University. Every Faculty-Lead trip available to Eastern students is considered to be “short-term,” or less than a full semester (2). More Eastern students choose to go on Faculty-lead trips than any other kind (2). Students on Faculty-Lead programs pay a Program Fee, which could include anything from the cost of meals to airfare, and the standard EIU tuition to Eastern in addition to the $90 per credit hour fee which goes to the Office of Study Abroad. Partner programs are designed and maintained by an outside study abroad institution that has come to an agreement with EIU on the cost that students pay. Students who participate on partner programs will pay the program fee to Eastern, who will then pay the aforementioned entity based on what they agreed upon. For this reason, the majority of partner programs are more expensive, credit hour for credit hour, than Eastern. There are currently four semester long partner programs that cost less than going to Eastern: Universidad de Salamanca in Spain, Universidad San Fransisco de Quinto in Ecuador, Universidad Veritas in Costa Rica and Ajou University in South Korea. Exchange Programs are ones where Eastern students will essentially trade places with a student at a foreign institution for a semester or year. The Office of Study Abroad currently has 19 Exchange programs with foreign institutions in 7 countries. Students pay for Exchange programs in the same way they would a Partner program. Independent Programs are essentially Partner programs without a partnership between Eastern and a foreign institution. This puts great responsibility on the student to find a foreign institution and make sure the classes they take there will be counted when they return to Eastern. Program Lengths The Office of Study Abroad offers programs ranging from one week to a full academic year. They are divided into the following categories: Spring or Winter Break, Summer, Semester and Full-Year. Spring or Winter Break trips take place during the week that Eastern students have off in March. There are currently three spring or winter break trips offered to Eastern students: Food, Wine and Fashion of Italy; Education in Italy and America and the Yanapuma Spanish School in Ecuador. All of the trips earn Eastern students credits that count towards their graduation just as any other one would. Summer trips can be anywhere from two to ten weeks long. They are the most popular type of program. Currently there are 39 summer trips offered to Eastern students. Semester trips can take place in either the fall or spring. The average program is the same as Eastern, 14 weeks, with some variation depending on the institution. There are no Faculty-Lead semester long trips. In 2009-2010 there were 81 Eastern students who spent either fall or spring semester abroad. Of those 8 were student teaching abroad. Full-year trips are rare due to the time commitment involved. Currently there are 8 full-year programs available in 6 countries including the United Kingdom, Sweden and the Island Nation of Northern Cyprus. The Study Abroad Fair Each semester since the fall of 2006, the Office of Study Abroad has put on the Study Abroad Fair in the University Ballroom in the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union. The number of students has increased tenfold in the less than five years since the event began. The first fair saw just over 50 students check out the displays made by Eastern faculty who were promoting their faculty-lead programs. In the fall of 2010, over 550 students were counted attending the event, which featured not only faculty-lead programs but over 20 outside institutions and study abroad providers. To draw students in there is a raffle each year with entry being based on talking to at least six different program representatives and having them sign your “passport.” At the most recent fair the Office of Study Abroad raffled off more than $200 worth of prizes donated by local Charleston businesses and several other items donated by the fair’s presenters. Citations #Interview with Wendy Williams, the current Director of the Office of Study Abroad #“Office of Study Abroad Fast Facts <www.castle.eiu.edu/edabroad/pdf/fastfacts.pdf> Available for download at #“Study Abroad”